Anchor
by Oldach's Dream
Summary: Challenge response: Missing Benders scene, when Sam rescues Dean. I’m pretty sure no one has done it quite like this yet. Part 3 posted. Complete.
1. Part 1

By: Oldach's Dream

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: Challenge response: Missing Benders scene, when Sam rescues Dean. I'm pretty sure no one has done it quite like this yet.

A/N:Just a fill-in-the-blank scene, with my own special twist. I'm considering turning this into a multi-chapter fic, if anyone's interested.

Also, I can't really remember which arm the Bender's hurt when they burned Dean with that thing, so I'm sorry if I got that wrong – I'm going with, it was his left.

* * *

Anchor

Sam knew that by leaving Kathleen, the angry and vengeful deputy, alone with Pa Bender, he was more or less ensuring the man's murder. And for a moment - a brief, instinctual moment - that didn't set right with the youngest Winchester. So he simply stood there, motionless, so many thoughts and emotions coursing through him, it was just impossible to zone in on just one.

"Go ahead." She repeated, and that was enough for Sam. He turned and left her with that pathetic excuse for a human being, locked rightfully in one of his own cages.

The farther he got away from the barn where he'd been held prisoner, the more right he felt. He wasn't doing an injustice by letting that monster get shot - he was protecting people. And that was what the Winchester's did.

He was only a few feet from the Bender home when he heard the gunshot go off – he barely even paused. He was too focused now, focused on getting to his big brother, Pa Bender didn't deserve any period of mourning. He didn't even deserve a concerned eye-bat. He was dead now, and Sam was glad.

* * *

"Dean!" Sam shouted as soon as he caught sight of his brother, tied to a chair in the middle of the Bender living room, his head was down, and for one heart stopping moment, Sam honestly believed that this psycho family had succeeded in killing him. 

His big brother's head snapped up though, at the sound of his name. Sam barely had time to register the relief in Dean's green eyes, and surly he imagined the tears pooling there. The elder hunter had hardly uttered a pathetic, "Sammy?" before a rather large knife was whipped at him.

Sam barely managed to dodge the offending weapon, apparently, in his haste to get back to his brother, he had made a careless error – forgetting to scan the room for immediate threats upon entering it.

Annoyed with himself, and pissed at the Bender family as a whole, he lunged at the small child. The girl fought him, clawing at his arms before Sam managed to lock them behind her back in a death grip.

"My daddy's gonna _kill_ you." Missy spat angrily, and Sam was almost sad then. It wasn't her fault her family was insane – the girl hadn't asked to be raised this way – hadn't asked for the life of a hunter.

Feeling suddenly sympathetic, and knowing that he couldn't hurt a child anyway; he dragged the screaming, spitting and struggling young girl to the nearest closet. Shoving her in forcefully, he held the door closed, reaching down and turning the conveniently existing lock just below the doorknob. He pulled a chair over form the dinning room table and propped it up against the door just for good measure. He listened as Missy beat against the door wildly for a few seconds, and only when he was quite positive she wouldn't be getting out, didhe turn and hastily make his way back into the living room.

Dean was thrashing in the chair by the time Sam got back, trying desperately to free himself from his restraints. Sam rushed over to help the elder hunter, a bit frightened by his behavior, wondering exactly what had happened in the time gap they were separated.

Dropping to his knees behind the chair, he tried to undo the tightly knotted rope hastily, but Dean's movements were making it a rather difficult endeavor. "Calm down," Sam said it pleadingly, and Dean's movements stopped at once.

"Sammy?" The elder questioned as Sam began working on the ropes more fervently, wondering to himself if he should risk getting up and looking around for the knife Missy had thrown at him.

"Yeah, Dean." He answered, using his best calming voice - the same tone he'd adapted on the plane to quell his brother's nerves. He continued working on the ropes with his hands, finding itnext toimpossible to undo them, he didn't want to leave his spot just yet to find something to aid him quite yet, though. They were in no immediate danger anymore, anyway.

"You okay?" Dean's voice was shaky, and Sam found himself smiling, trying to make light of the situation.

"'Course I'm okay," he scoffed, "You think I'd let a bunch of red-neck, hillbillies hurt me? You'd never let me live it down."

He'd expected his comment to lay the groundwork for making light of the entirepredicament. It was something Dean normally did – poke fun at alarmingly un-humorous situations – but since his brother was clearly a bit traumatized, Sam figured he'd give him an out. He expected the elder man to pick it up from there, as he tugged continually at the ropes.

Dean, however, just swallowed thickly, talking in broken tones after a slight pause. "I…I heard gunshots…" He sounded so lost; a part of Sam wanted to round the chair so he could see his brother's face, but another part – a bigger part – wanted to stay where he was, hidden, a safe speaking distance away.

"Yeah," he too, swallowed loudly, "There was a fight, no biggie."

"I…I thought…" his voice still had that lost tone. Sam had only heard this tone a handful of times before, and none of them with good surrounding circumstances. It took a lot to rattle his big brother; the elder prided himself on being unshakable, as solid as a rock – and that's how Sam thought of him constantly as well.

Sam spoke frantically, and pulled at the slowly loosening restraints with more of a panicked edge, "Hey, Dean, nothing happened to me, okay? I'm fine. And as soon as I get these goddamn ropes undone, we're gonna get the hell outta here, alright?"

Dean still didn't seem able to come out of his shocked, frightened trance. And the more he continued to speak in that tone – the voice Sam had associated his entire life to death or some sort of major tragedy – the more desperate the young hunter became. He wanted to get out of this house, and he wanted to do it now.

"Sammy?" Dean questioned again, and there was no change in the way he said it.

"Yeah, big brother?" He stopped his movements this time to listen.

"You're really not dead?"

Something inside of Sam snapped at those words. Dean had honestly thought that he'd died – he truly believed that he had failed his little brother. Because that's what Sam heard in his voice when he actually listened for it, knew how to identify it. Failure.

Tinged ever so slightly with hope.

"No, Dean." He breathed, "I'm not dead."

If his brother said anything else after that, Sam didn't hear it. All he could hear now was the sound of blood rushing, and his heart pounding in his ears. He didn't recall doing it, exactly, but he saw himself stand up. Some tiny pocket of knowledge still present in the back of his mind told him that he might have stood up with the intention of finding Missy's knife, using the weapon to undo the knots still holding his brother in place.

As he rose to his full height though, something changed. He began taking in his surroundings differently. He was still standing behind his brother in the Bender's living room, physically that's still where he was; but something in his mind branched out. He saw the space surrounding him, and the space surrounding that; he saw a deeper level to everything.

It took only a fraction of a second, but he saw everything there was to see in that house. The very foundation that made up the entire structure and everything in it – layers and layers of hate, death, destruction, the need to kill, blood and so many other ugly things, horrible emotions – all of it being held together by a thin, intricate pattern of natural resources. Wood, brick, stone, plaster – the physical aspect of the Bender home shied away from terrible things its occupants had laced the house with. Sam saw generations of death, of people hunting, hiding in the walls of this house, and it tainted everything in it.

Sam felt the hate the Benders had put into their home, and it made him sick to his stomach. It made him want to gag, want to get as far away from this place as possible -he felt dirty just being there. He'd only felt this level of connection, clarity, one other time in his life, but he was too far-gone now to comprehend what exactly that meant.

He just looked down at the ropes still binding his brother to the unsteady wooden chair. He could only see the restraints with a portion of him mind – the rest of his sight was focused solely on the hate it took to tie knots that tight, the need for control that powered the hands that put them there.

Finally, he saw the intent to kill. The hazy layer of intended murder that obstructed everything around them, that burned so bright and cold around his brother. Sam focused on that feeling – knowing without question that it was the right thing to do – and gave the ropes another hard glare.

And then they were undone.

After that, the world came rushing back. Sam didn't have time to stop and think about what he'd just done – he didn't want to stop and think about it. The layered sight that he'd possessed just a fraction of a second ago was already gone, but the remnants of feelings it left behind were not.

Not even at Max's house had he felt that much raw pain.

Dean's movements were what finally shook him out of his shock, and truly brought him back to the moment they were still, despite all logic, in.

"Sam?" He heard the older man grunt, "You get the ropes?" a small flick of the wrist answered his own question, and the younger man quickly bent down again to help unravel the now loose ties.

"Yeah," he croaked, before clearing his throat – and mind. He pulled his brother's hands free, pausing for a short, but unmistakable, second to grip one of Dean's hands firmly in his own. "You okay?"

He let his brother go, and watched as the elder quickly pulled himself up, out of the chair, and straightened, turning to face the taller man. Untying him seemed to strengthen his hold on reality, assure him that Sam really was there, and that all this was truly over.

"I'll live," his tone wasn't quite back to the normal, sarcastic brother Sam was used to, but it was certainty better than the lost, grief-stricken voice he'd been hearing earlier.

Earlier, before he'd used telekinesis to free his brother. Sam wondered absently what was it about Dean that triggered these psychic attacks.

"What about you?" His brother interrupted his thoughts, stepping close to Sam and reaching his right hand out in one fluid motion, grasping his shoulder firmly. "They didn't do anything to you, did they? 'Cause I made a couple death threats I wouldn't mind owin' up to."

"No, Dean, I'm fine." It was a lie now, of course. Sam wasn't fine – he was a freak. He was a bigger freak than his brother could ever possibly imagine, and to top it off, he was beginning to feel the onslaught of a headache tinge the surface of his consciousness.

He wouldn't tell any of this to Dean, though. He couldn't. "Hey," something caught Sam's attention as he batted his brother's concerned hand away. "What happened to your shoulder?"

"Oh," Dean looked down at the injured appendage in question and shrugged slightly with his right shoulder, keeping his left hand firmly fixed to his torso. "That. Bastards thought I was Cattle or something…"

Sam's eyes widened while simultaneously darting around the room. He found what he was looking for in a red-hot poker leaning up against the side of the wall by the fireplace. "God…" he breathed. "Dean…"

"I'm fine, Sammy." He assured. "We'll bandage it up, and I'll be good as new. Promise."

Sam could only nod, feeling even more nauseated at the thought of his brother getting burned like that. Now that he looked at Dean closely, he could see the beginnings of a bruise forming on the side of his face, as well. Quite obviously the older man had gone a round or two with some member of the Bender family.

Sam got kidnapped, he thought stupidly, but Dean wound up taking all the hits. All the physical pain was placed on his big brother, all because Sam got himself into trouble. Guilt added to the unpleasant churning feeling present in the pit of his stomach, slowly spreading itself throughout his entire body.

"Good," Dean finally managed a small smirk, obviously sensing how distraught Sam was. His big brother was always able to do that - put his own feelings on hold if Sam really needed him to. "Then lets get the hell outta here, huh kiddo?"

"Yeah." That was the best idea Sam had heard all night. "Lets go."

They stayed close to each other while exiting the living room, Sam stayed on Dean's uninjured side, so that when their arms brushed, it didn't hurt his brother anymore. He couldn't strand the thought of causing Dean anymore pain.

They paused again just before they hit the front door, turning to face each other almost simultaneously. Dean reached out his arm again; only this time it didn't stop just resting on Sam's shoulder. It squeezed firmly and pulled the taller man closer. Sam didn't stop the awkward half-hug his brother pulled him into, and he lifted his own arm to circle around Dean's back.

He closed his eyes briefly and let a certain stillness consume him – if only for a heartbeat. Everything was okay. His big brother could make everything okay – that was his job. "I thought I lost you."

The words were so faint; Sam thought momentarily that he'd imagined them. Only he knew he hadn't. "Not today, bro." He whispered back.

A moment longer and they separated, pulling apart reluctantly, knowing they couldn't stay like that, and wishing all the while that they could. That they could just be little kids again, and wrap themselves up in their own, safe world until reality went away.

Sam ignored the way Dean wiped at his eyes with his right hand and kept his left firmly fixed to his chest. Dean, if he noticed - and Sam was sure he did - ignored his little brother's shaky footsteps as they made it a few more paces – so close to the exit.

"Dean?" Sam had made a spilt second decision to tell his brother about his second telekinetic outburst before they exited the house, a decision he regretted a split second later when the elder turned to him with a concerned, expectant gaze.

"Yeah?" He said after a moment of Sam's silence. The younger brother opened his mouth, but then closed it again, almost at once. He shook his head and shrugged.

"Never mind."

Dean was going to push it, Sam could see in his eyes that he was going press him on it until he caved in. Which is why Sam sighed a sigh of massive relief as they walked out the front door and caught sight of Deputy Kathleen before Dean could utter a single word on the matter. All thoughts of personal conversations were put on hold – hopefully to be forgotten about all together – as they reentered the real world.

"Where's the girl?"

And they were back to normal. Sam had to resist snorting out loud at that thought. Normal.

_Yeah, right. _

End…?

A/N: Like I said, I wrote this bit for the missing scenes challenge, but I was debating on weather or not to have a follow up chapter. If I did, it would probably take place directly after this one, you know - the walk in the woods, back at the motel. It's up to you guys, really.

Review!


	2. Part 2

By: Oldach's Dream

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: Challenge response: Missing Benders scene, when Sam rescues Dean. I'm pretty sure no one has done it quite like this yet.

A/N: Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement for the first chapter. Because of it, I've decided to make this a three-part story. Please keep the reviews on a comin'. They make me happy.

* * *

Anchor

Sam was in somewhat of a trance-like mode. The youngest Winchester couldn't - despite all his want and need - actually collapse onto the nearest pile of unearthed dirt and sleep for the rest of the night, lest he worry his brother. He lacked the energy to do more than stumble along side Dean, through the seemingly never-ending backcountry roads.

All of Sam's energy reserves had dwindled out of existence after only a few minutes of laughing and mock-arguing with Dean, now the two walked silently side by side, and the younger hunter felt that his near meditative state was the only thing holding him together at the moment.

One foot in front of the other. The repetitive pattern was simple enough to keep him calm and distracted. He managed to ignore the sharp jabbing pain that attacked him each time he was forced to veer out of the path of a given obstacle. As long as he could keep this up, though, as long as he didn't have to think or exert himself, he'd be fine.

Then, as if reading his mind - or, more likely, the tension surrounding them - Dean chose that moment to speak for the first time in what Sam thought perhaps might be literal hours.

"We're about halfway there," he commented into the nighttime silence. Sam forced himself to nod - and not cringe afterwards. "You okay?"

Sam knew logically that nothing ever really got past his big brother, and that unwavering protective instinct he had, so Sam simply shrugged and mumbled, "Headache."

He could see the gears in Dean's mind turning at the statement, the struggle he battled within himself; weather or not to push the subject, probe at the reasons behind it. But Sam had already successfully steered him away from one uncomfortable topic that night, and they would not be backtracking.

"How's your shoulder?" He asked instead. His head was still pounding, but he found talking an almost better method of distraction than the trance he'd let himself fall into before.

"It'll be fine," he assured, yet his left arm had not unfastened itself from his side yet.

"I'm sorry," he was saying before his brain could get any say in the matter. He felt Dean's confused look more than he saw it, and kept staring straight ahead. "That that happened." He clarified.

"It wasn't your fault." He sounded almost bewildered, as if not understanding his brother's guilt. Sam thought for sure it was a fake - or naive - sentiment. Anyone would be able to point out Sam's rightful guilt in this situation.

"Sammy," Dean's voice spoke again after a few moments silence.

"Huh?"

"What happened tonight, little brother?" He asked the question softly, almost gently, and Sam wasn't quite sure he understood.

"I got kidnapped by a bunch of psycho hillbillies and you saved my life." He paused for affect. "Again."

"Right, I was there for that part." He said slowly.

"Then what...?"

"What happened in the house? What were you gonna tell me?"

Sam's heart leapt as fear raced through him. Dean couldn't know about Sam's outburst. His brother wasn't okay with Sam's... abilities, no matter what the elder man said. Sam had seen the way he looked at him after they left Max's house. Had seen the uncertainty, the fear in his eyes, Dean didn't want to be an accomplice to his little brother's freak-hood.

"Nothing." Sam pressed. "I told you, never mind."

"Man," Dean exclaimed, laughing that angry laugh he reserved especially for Sam. "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" The younger brother made his voice sound perplexed, but Sam had a pretty good inkling of what his brother was pissed about.

"Clam up like that!" He half shouted, before calming slightly. "How do you expect me to fix anything if you won't tell me what's wrong?"

Sam actually snorted. "You can't fix everything, Dean." He exclaimed, closing his eyes as a dizzy spell hit hard.

"Not if you won't talk to me, I can't." He seemingly agreed with his brother's anger. "You've been quiet since we left the Bender's, Sammy. And I swear to God this whole situation will _not _be one of those things we don't talk about."

"We don't talk about anything, Dean." Sam's muddled mind was having a hard time accepting - or even rationalizing - Dean's insistence. "No chick flick moments, 'member?"

His big brother ignored the words entirely, plowing on with his concern, masked amazingly well as anger. "Did something happen in there that you're not telling me about?" Was all he said and the taller man froze. Literally, stopping in his tracks.

Sam knew his brother was referring the Bender's themselves, and something they might have done to hurt Sam physically. The truth was probably worse than whatever Dean was imagining right now, but Sam couldn't bring himself to answer the question. Couldn't even bring himself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Dean stopped as well, but Sam could scarcely make out his concerned gaze in the darkness of the night.

"Sammy?" He questioned, inching closer to him ever so slightly, as if worried about making any sudden movements. Sam didn't blame him. His behavior since they left the Bender farm had been rather sporadic. One minute he was laughing and joking with Dean, the next he wanted nothing more than to make it out of these woods and back to the motel. Perhaps sleep could erase away the events of the last few days.

Could dull Sam's vivid memories of the people who had tried so hard to kill him. Who wanted to play some sick, twisted game for their own morbid enjoyment. Maybe, just maybe, if Sam climbed into the passenger's seat of the Impala, Dean could drive them away from Sam's powers, the uselessness he felt. What good was it; he asked himself, to have these freak abilities, if he couldn't even save himself from the Benders - a simple and powerless human evil?

If he had any skill at all, if he wasn't so damn pathetic, he would have been able to channel his stupid telekinesis, and used it before the Bender clan had decided to torture his brother. Sam was the one with super-powers, but Deans still ended up saving his life on nearly ever hunt they ever went on. An now again from these...people. These mortal, human people, that had no tie to anything supernatural at all, had no clear cut advantage over the Winchesters. Sam had never felt more utterly and completely helpless in his entire life.

He felt a firm grip on his shoulder, and looked up, refocusing his dull eyes, to see his brother standing less than an inch away from him. "Hey, buddy." He said the words with relieved softness, and it was only

then that Sam's mind registered the fact that Dean had been trying, unsuccessfully, to gain his attention for several minutes now.

"_Sammy?" He questioned again._

"_Sam?"_

"_Come on, Sammy, stop it." He took a few steps closer._

"_What's the matter with you, Sam?"_

_He came closer still. "Sam."_

_His voice was an order now. "Stop it. Stop zoning out."_

_His right hand reached out and clamped on Sam's shoulder. Hard. Another step. "Come on, little brother. You're scaring me."_

And maybe that's what had done it, Sam thought. The thought of Dean being scared had always rattled Sam. Always somehow made it seem like the foundation of his entire world was collapsing in around him. Only this time, he was the cause of it.

"You back with me, little brother?"

"Yeah," Sam shook his head, and watched as the trees rocked back and forth in his vision. "Just tired. Let's go."

Dean stopped him before he got half a step. "What happened at the Bender's that you don't want to tell me about?"

"Nothing." Sam snapped almost immediately.

"Bull-" Dean countered back at once.

"It's nothing."

"-shit." He finished through his little brother's pathetic attempts at lying.

"Dean," his voice was pleading now, and had Sam been paying any attention, he would have seen the glimmer of fright pass through the elder's gaze. "Please. I'm tired. My head hurts, I... I just wanna go to sleep, okay?"

The younger hunter hated the way his voice cracked, making it seem like he was close to tears. In reality, the events of the past few hours had simply finally caught up with him, and maybe he was pleading with his brother. Maybe he did sound as pathetic and weak as he felt, and maybe some small part of him that still harbored an eight-year-old child did feel like crying, but he ignored that; Sam's only real thought now was getting out of these woods as fast as humanly possible.

Everything would be better once they were far away from this place.

"Okay," he heard his brother agree through a haze of other thoughts, he latched onto Dean's worried tone like a lifeline. "Let's get back to the motel, we'll talk about it tomorrow."

Sam felt relieved, honest to God relieved at Dean's compliance. Maybe they would talk about it come morning, maybe in the light of day, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe once the sun was shinning and the Bender farm was less than a speck in their rear-view mirror, Sam wouldn't be so much of a freak.

"Thank you," he mumbled gratefully, as his brother squeezed his shoulder again, before letting go reluctantly, starting again on the path that would lead them away from the destruction of the night.

Sam had barely put one foot back on the path, when the world started to spin again, this time more noticeably than it had all night. "Dean?" He called out at once; frightened at his inability to control the tilting of the ground beneath his feet.

His brother turned around at once. "Sammy?"

Sam saw the word come out of his mouth, but he couldn't hear it. Couldn't hear anything other than the buzzing in his ears. Dean's frantic, frightened face was the last thing Sam saw before the world went black.

* * *

TBC...

I'd love to know your thoughts on this.


	3. Part 3

Anchor

_Sam looked around; his current surroundings were morphing in a way that was dreadfully familiar, yet impossibly new. He saw the thick, surrounding forest; only he more than saw the physical aspect if it. He felt the life and death of that forest all around him. He could sense every single particle of energy that it took to put that forest together. From measly patches of dirt, to the strongest, oldest oak tree - the one that stood above all the others, looking over the rest of the woods. Protecting all it cared for._

_That energy struck a chord in Sam's still mortally conscious mind - the belief that everything would be all right if he could just find the root of that elder oak tree, if he could just sit beneath it, and absorb its strength, believe in its powers of protection. _

_He sought to find his brother then. Spurred on by the life force of that ancient oak tree - the one that he couldn't see, but stood out amongst the midst of __other layers of this place. He knew Dean would be by that tree, that his big brother would be attracted to its strength, would know instinctively the similarities, the safety there, even if he couldn't see them as Sam could. _

_Sam followed the feel of the tree; let its safety attract him, as he knew it was meant to do. He thought that, finally, his powers were good for something. He would find his brother, and they would be gone from this place, away from nature. There was so much nature here, too much to feel. Nature was too complex -he saw now, too intertwined and infused with greater knowledge. Understanding that none should have, but that Sam was cursed with._

_Only maybe it was at least partially a blessing, because it did lead him to his brother. The oak was stationed in the direct center of the forest, and Sam's mind could trace back the area's entire history, knew with one glance - one uncontrollable bout of knowledge - that this is where the forest began. Like the single cell that had created planet earth all those eons ago, the seed of this oak tree had sprung a whole world._

_His brother rested at its base._

"_Dean." Sam said the word and felt their own world behind it. Saw them as little kids, hiding away. Saw them as aging adults, still on a mission. Saw them as corpses, refusing to accept the reality of death. Knew they would find each other again in the afterlife, blessed with the knowledge that each and every one of their lifetimes was meant to be intertwined. _

"_I'm here, little brother." Only Dean's voice wasn't coming from the physical body that lied on the earth. Dean was all around Sam - the younger Winchester could feel it, could feel him. Knew that he had bonded with the soul of that old oak tree. _

"_I can't see you." He knew the complaint was illogical, but he could feel no tie to his brother's body. His spirit was surrounding him, taking him in and offering him a world of safe things, a born again childhood. The normal he had always wanted. But that wasn't what Sam desired. _

"_Of course you can." His brother would have said it with a scoff, Sam knew, forced himself to remember - this voice was diffeent, this knowledge, it flowed through him, connected with him on all levels. It increased his sense of loss, and made him want to cry. _

"_I can't, Dean. I can't!" He shouted with his wide outstretch of powers, at the tree and the sky and all the life he could feel and touch. His vocal chords were producing only whispers. _

"_I'm here, little brother." The tree repeated, Dean's voice mimicked. "All you have to do is wake up." _

Sam didn't come-to in the same jerky, uncontrollable, frightening manner that always seemed to follow his nightmares, his late-night trips to a world long since forgotten, one that threatened to take over every aspect of his well-suppressed lifestyle.

He woke instead with the feeling of intense comfort, deep control. He knew he was in a safe place, knew that nothing could harm him here. He wasn't seeing the world through the eyes of a psychic; he was simply trusting his instincts.

"Hey, buddy," Dean's soft voice told Sam that the elder was well aware of his movements. He opened his eyes without thinking about it, and took an actual look at his surroundings. He had to blink rapidly to focus his vision, but once he did, he was glad he wasn't in an upright position.

Sam was half sitting against his brother, half using the elder man's uninjured shoulder as a makeshift bed. Dean himself was propped up against the wide trunk of an enormous tree. An oak tree, Sam knew, and recalled something vaguely from the dream he had just awoken from that gave him that knowledge. The dream itself was slipping farther away from the recesses of his mind with each passing second, and something primal in Sam told him to fight like hell to hold on to it. Something more human, though, told him to let go, that he didn't really want to know.

"You okay?" Dean's voice was distant, and Sam fought himself to hold onto it.

"Yeah," he grunted, trying automatically to raise himself away from his brother, to balance on one hand and escape his big brother's warmth.

Dean, however, would be having none of that. "Easy," he commanded immediately, raising a hand and pressing against the taller man's shoulder. Sam found himself unable to challenge Dean's firm grip or the authority in his tone. He slumped back into the comforting embrace, forgetting entirely why he knew the base of this tree was a safe resting spot.

Sam closed his eyes again, and took several deep breaths - immediately relaxed, at ease with everything, connected with the surrounding area, so in-tune with it, that he knew leaving himself vulnerable here wouldn't be a mistake. The rise and fall of Dena's chest was lulling him to sleep, a thick blanket of protective feelings covered him, he was so close to peace, so close to total understanding...

"Don't drift off on me, Sammy." Dean's words weren't a request, and Sam wanted to cry.

He settled for a marginally pathetic whimper, followed closely by, "I'm tired."

"You can sleep once we get back to the motel." His voice was promising, and Sam thought longingly of mattresses. His placid attitude could be rightfully contributed to Dean, and the fact that, despite his unwillingness to let Sam drift back to his own, protected world, he was also seemingly at peace with letting him rest comfortably where he was. Which, in its own way, would win out over the need for a bed any day. His brother's fingers running lazily through his mass of unruly hair weren't helping matters much, either. "Long day, huh?"

Sam snorted, feeling a bit more connected to the here and now after doing so. "Long, crappy day." He muttered, agreeing.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice was firm.

"Yeah?" He made no effort to move, kept his eyes shut, and pretended he was still asleep.

"Did something happen tonight that you're not telling me about?"

Sam saw the safety of the old oak tree, remembered feeling its sturdiness, its indestructibility. Not even the strongest of storms could rattle it structure.

"Yes." He answered honestly. He was doing nothing more than testing the durability of something that had always sheltered him. Something he would need forever.

"Was it the Benders?" Sam wasn't really paying attention to the hitch in his brother's tone, the pause before he spoke of the frightful people. He saw all the surrounding factors as simply branches swaying in the wind.

"No." He was honest again, couldn't even imagine being anything else. He was only semi-there - still partially stuck in a world that only half his brain sought to remember. One opening his eyes would diminish some more. He was too tired to fight the truth, too trusting to hide its entirety. If Dean wanted to know...

Sam still felt the oak tree.

"Then what happened tonight, little brother?"

Sam's inner eye took him back to kneeling behind the chair Dean was strapped to, made him recall the helplessness. "I wanted to get out of there so bad." He didn't realize he'd spoke aloud until he felt Dean's hand stop stroking his head. Knew then that this was happening. "I wanted to get you out of there, and the ropes wouldn't loosen."

"Sammy..."

"I'd been trapped in that pathetic little cage for how long? I don't even know, but a part of me musta wanted to be there, cause I didn't get myself out."

"That wasn't your fault, Sam." Dean's voice was firm now. That parental tone he got sometimes, the one Sam more than often ignored. "How could you have gotten yourself out? Huh?"

"The same way I got those ropes undone." He informed him. "With my powers."

Dean's entire body went stiff behind him, and Sam remembered suddenly that not even the strongest Oak in the forest was immune to the power of the flames.

"Your powers?" Dean's voice took long, stretched out minutes to reattach itself to the rest of his being. His tone was hollow.

"Telekinesis." Sam felt the need to clarify. "Like Max."

"You used...that, to get those ropes undone?"

Sam nodded, and saw the multitude of deaths Max's abilities had caused before he'd diminished his own existence. His eyelids lit up in vibrant colors, to replay the last seconds of the troubled boy's life for the young hunter's guilty conscious. Power led to death, Sam had learned. Unnatural forces led to death. Always. That was fact.

"Sammy..." and the word betrayed so much lost emotion, so many undecided things; Sam wished he were far away from it. From it all.

Then he felt his brother shift, somehow connected to the emotions that he'd known for a lifetime, felt them in their entirety, saw for the first time their truth. "You know, bro, finding a knife would've been a lot easier." Sam had seen the hurling weapon, decided in a split second that it would not cause his death. Decided also, that it would play no role in his life. "Probably less painful, too." He muttered. "I'm guessing that's what brought on the fainting thing."

"I didn't faint." Was the only thing Sam could think to say. He was almost ready to open his eyes again. "Girls faint. I passed out."

"Whatever, bro." The long pause made Sam forget a few things, made life more believable for a few seconds. "Does that mean you're learning to control this thing?"

Dean's fingers through his hair started back up again, and Sam relaxed into it. He felt his big brother's heart beating, and saw for a moment that it controlled the world around them. Dean's blood pumped through this forest, his breathing conducted every inch of life surrounding them. Should his brother cease to exist, all would suffer. Most would die.

"No," he said, mortally still caught up the progressing conversation, but only half knowing it. "It means I'm a freak."

Dean nodded slowly, Sam's head shifted slightly. "Yeah..." he dragged out. "But we already knew that."

"Jerk." A smile tugged on the corners of his lips.

"Seriously, though," he went on, Sam leaned back further into him. "Is that why you flipped out tonight?"

"What? You don't think that warrants a flip-out?" He was defending his own behavior, tied finally, almost fully to reality.

"Sam," Dean went on, that one word telling him that he wouldn't be receiving a direct answer to his question. "You scared the shit out of me, kiddo. I thought...well, you don't really want to know what I thought."

Sam saw in the moment even more failure. He had done nothing right this evening. Managed to get his brother tortured, then put him through hell all over again. He was a walking sin, a talking disappointment, a living freak, a breathing murderer.

At last, he opened his eyes.

He was no longer half-caught in the current of his dream, and reality, the surrounding forest, seemed much more dismal now. "I'm sorry." He breathed. "I didn't mean to do it. Any of it."

"You mean, use your powers." Dean concluded in that all-knowing tone of his. "Right?"

Sam wanted desperately to re-escape to the safety of a subconscious world. "Yeah," he chuckled at himself. "I can't do anything right, can I, man? I get captured by those freaks. I have these…whatever the hell they are, and I can't even control them. It's pathetic."

Dean's hand stopped running through his hair again, and Sam thought for sure he had lost him, reminded his brother of what a useless freak he was. Dean would finally capitalize on all the anger he was surly repressing because of Sam; would finally see that his little brother was nothing more than a scared loser who'd abandoned him to go to college, only rejoined him to get his own revenge, tried to kill him with his own gun, shot him with rock salt, shouted hateful things, caused his torture, always put him in the middle of his battles, and resented him for being a good person. Dean would leave his little brother, and Sam would deserve it.

"Listen to me, Sammy." Dean commanded, only Sam didn't want to, knew what this was leading to. But he had no choice, he simply braced himself for the impact of the coming words – forced himself to memorize his brother's comforting hold before it was gone forever. "What happened tonight? It. Wasn't. Your. Fault."

"Dean…" Sam tired; surly his brother had misunderstood what he'd told him. Somehow didn't grasp the bigger picture.

"Shut up, Sam." He snapped, and the younger man was almost frightened by the anger there. "What happened tonight wasn't your fault. You can't control the telekinesis, just like you can't control the visions. And that's _not you fault_."

"But I _should_ be able to control them!" Sam snapped, angry with himself for pushing his brother to abandon him. "They're _my_ powers! I should have been able to use them before those bastards hurt you. I…I should have been able to save Jessica."

"Sammy-"

"She died because I didn't want to believe it, Dean. I dreamt it would happen." He echoed his own reflection in Bloody Mary's mirror, marveling at how right that spirit had been. "And I didn't do a thing."

"You didn't know." Dean's voice was still firm, still held confidence. Confidence, Sam realized, that the elder man was placing in him. He wasn't sure if that helped, or just made his feel guiltier still. "And the next time it happened," he went on strongly. "You _did_ do something. Remember Jenny? That woman in our old house? Her and her kids are alive right now because you _did_ learn to believe in those dreams. We saved them because of you. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Of course it counts," Sam was slightly perplexed, too used to believing everything was his fault to completely grasp the whole meaning of this conversation. "But that doesn't change what happened to Jess. Or the fact that I can't control any of it." He felt so useless; surly Dean would see how true it was.

"Jessica didn't die because of you," he repeated. "And if you keep believing that she did, her death will have been for nothing."

"What?" His voice was shaky, he considered pulling himself away.

"You can't keep drowning in this guilt, little brother." He spoke rationally, and Sam wanted both to cling to that, see its truth, and to pull himself away violently, knowing it was too easy. "What are you so afraid of?" He asked suddenly, and Sam was taken aback.

"What?" He repeated.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing." He bit, feeling suddenly cold towards his brother, he rolled away from him then; repositioning himself so he was next to him, leaning against that tree trunk.

"That someone else will get hurt because of you? Your powers?" He guessed, sounding as if he finally understood. Sam kept his eyes locked straight ahead; a small tree was the only thing in his direct line of vision, he focused on it. And stayed silent.

Dean's gaze was fixed on Sam. "You think, that because you have this gift, you're supposed to able to save everybody?" Sam saw the truth of the statement, mixed with the tone his brother said it in; it made Sam wonder finally which if the two brothers truly had the bigger hero complex. Dean would hunt and save people for the rest of eternity – but Sam would take every single loss home. And never let go of them. "Man," Dean chuckled humorlessly, "You know it doesn't work like that."

"I…" only Sam had no idea what he wanted to say.

Dean didn't seem to mind, his big brother had his own speech to make. "Sammy. You can do these things, you see things, move things, and yeah, that gives you a

little bit of an edge." He paused, and Sam realized the real sentiment was coming. "But that does _not _make you responsible for every bad thing that happens. Jessica's death, mom's death, Max's suicide, this burn on my shoulder," Sam clenched his teeth harder at each memory. "None of it happened because of you."

Sam was silent for a span of impossibly long minutes, weighing everything his brother said, debating it, playing with the idea. He remembered Jessica's voice in his nightmares, the _"Why?" _that always echoed around him. Only then he recalled times before her death, when they were happy. She would tell him the same thing Dean was trying to get him to understand now.

"_It's not your fault your father's stubborn." _She'd told him after he'd offered the bare minimum of information on his family situation.

"_We both decided to stay up last night, Sam. This isn't your responsibility," _She'd whispered into his chest one afternoon after she'd missed a mid-term because she'd slept through the alarm – having stayed up until the break of dawn with her lover.

"_You shouldn't blame yourself." _Her angelic voice whispered to him. He didn't know what the memory was, but he thought perhaps it was time to start listening. A soft breeze wafted through the forest, drifted over Sam and made him shiver.

He spoke without meaning to. "It wasn't my fault?" His voice was small.

Dean put his arm around the younger man's broad shoulder and squeezed gently, his own tone was soft, understanding. "By God, I think he's got it."

Sam smiled at the humor, feeling Dean in the words, knowing it was his brotehr's way of saying, 'Welcome Back.'

"I couldn't have saved her?" He had to make sure, had to hear it again.

Dean shook his head back and forth, "No, Sammy, you couldn't of."

"_You shouldn't blame yourself."_

"It still hurts." He admitted, realizing for the first time that it wasn't just guilt he'd been feeling all these months – that perhaps that's just what he'd been hiding behind.

"You loved her." Dean said sadly.

"I…I…" A broken sob caught in his throat, and for a moment he was petrified. He didn't know how to let go of emotion, thought it belonged inside of him, a constant reminder, something he should be forced to work through each and every day.

It was Dean who finally taught him that he'd been wrong – that guilt shouldn't be carried like that. He pulled his little brother to his chest and let Sam's head fall onto his shoulder, said nothing about the wad of shirt the broken man clenched in-between his fists. He just stroked his hair and spoke lovingly, resting his own chin on Sam's head so he could feel the movements of it when he talked. "It's okay, little brother. It's okay now."

Sam cried then, clutching to Dean life the lifeline he was. Rejoicing in the fact that his older brother still stood strong despite all the things Sam had done to try and destroy him. Sam cried and released guilt, he sobbed and accepted lost, he whimpered for the hole in his heart that would never completely heal, and finally, he took shallow breaths of acceptance. In and out, his breathing slowly became steadier, slowly; he was putting himself back together, using his big brother as a solid foundation.

The brothers were still holding onto each other after the crying ceased all together, and Sam prayed that Dean wouldn't let go. "You okay now?" The elder whispered and Sam shut his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

"Yeah," he breathed, and at last, it was the truth. "I'm…not responsible for Jess. Or mom. Or anything that…that I thought I was." And he believed it. Not because of his own breakdown or the realizations he had come to tonight, but because Dean had told him so, and his big brother would never lie to him. "I didn't do it."

"No, little brother," his chin was still lost in Sam's mess of hair. "You didn't."

Sam remembered his dream again, remembered the strong oak tree and his brother's voice all around him, it reminded him now of how eternally grateful he was for his brother's presence. Knew without question that he would be lost without him.

"I'm always gonna be here, Sammy." The younger man briefly wondered if his brother had gained the ability to read minds, but knew in his heart that Dean wasn't psychic. He was just the best big brother in the world.

End.

* * *

A/N: Well…that certainty required more brain cells than I thought it would. I'm pretty pleased though. What did you guys think? 


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